Property Tax Cap Policy in Indiana and Implications for Public School Funding Equity

The purpose of this research was to examine funding losses experienced by preschool to grade 12 (P–12) public school districts in Indiana, U.S., from an equity standpoint after the implementation of statewide property tax caps. All Indiana public school districts (N = 292) rely on property taxes as a major source of revenue, but districts experienced widely varying losses after the tax reform. Analyses across an array of district characteristics revealed significant relationships between differential funding losses and demographic indicators, including total student enrollment and the percentages of certain minoritized students. Implications for policy and practice include the integration of findings with essential research on funding equity in public education and attention on leadership toward reducing funding disparities

Community Leadership Institute of Kentucky

The Community Leadership Institute of Kentucky(CLIK) aims to improve community research capacity to address health disparities in communities, particularly Appalachia. Established in 2014, through a partnership of the UK Center of Excellence in Rural Health, the UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science Community Engagement Program, and the Kentucky Office of Rural Health, the intensive four-week training provides: Training in research and leadership Funding for community research projects Technical support for up to one year as participants implement community research projects Up to 12 slots are available annually, with priority given to leaders from Appalachian Kentucky and to projects related to key areas of research interest, including: Cancer prevention (e.g., nutrition, physical activity, smoking cessation) Reducing obesity and sedentary lifestyle Prevention and management of chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes and cardiovascular disease) Prevention and treatment of substance abus

'Colour and communion': Exploring the influences of visual art-making as a leisure activity on older women's subjective well-being

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Journal of Aging Studies. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2009 Elsevier B.V.Research into the subjective experience of art-making for older people is limited, and has focused mostly on professional artists rather than amateurs. This study examined older women's motives for visual art-making. Thirty-two participants aged 60-86 years old were interviewed. Twelve lived with chronic illness; twenty reported good health. Nearly all had taken up art after retirement; two had since become professional artists. Participants described their art-making as enriching their mental life, promoting enjoyment of the sensuality of colour and texture, presenting new challenges, playful experimentation, and fresh ambitions. Art also afforded participants valued connections with the world outside the home and immediate family. It encouraged attention to the aesthetics of the physical environment, preserved equal status relationships, and created opportunities for validation. Art-making protected the women's identities, helping them to resist the stereotypes and exclusions which are commonly encountered in later life.AHR

Effect of moisture on leaf litter decomposition and its contribution to soil respiration in a temperate forest

The degree to which increased soil respiration rates following wetting is caused by plant (autotrophic) versus microbial (heterotrophic) processes, is still largely uninvestigated. Incubation studies suggest microbial processes play a role but it remains unclear whether there is a stimulation of the microbial population as a whole or an increase in the importance of specific substrates that become available with wetting of the soil. We took advantage of an ongoing manipulation of leaf litter <sup>14</sup>C contents at the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to (1) determine the degree to which an increase in soil respiration rates that accompanied wetting of litter and soil, following a short period of drought, could be explained by heterotrophic contributions; and (2) investigate the potential causes of increased heterotrophic respiration in incubated litter and 0–5 cm mineral soil. The contribution of leaf litter decomposition increased from 6 ± 3 mg C m<sup>−2</sup> hr<sup>−1</sup> during a transient drought, to 63 ± 18 mg C m<sup>−2</sup> hr<sup>−1</sup> immediately after water addition, corresponding to an increase in the contribution to soil respiration from 5 ± 2% to 37 ± 8%. The increased relative contribution was sufficient to explain all of the observed increase in soil respiration for this one wetting event in the late growing season. Temperature (13°C versus 25°C) and moisture (dry versus field capacity) conditions did not change the relative contributions of different decomposition substrates in incubations, suggesting that more slowly cycling C has at least the same sensitivity to decomposition as faster cycling organic C at the temperature and moisture conditions studied

Analysing the opinions of UK veterinarians on practice-based research using corpus linguistic and mathematical methods

The use of corpus linguistic techniques and other related mathematical analyses have rarely, if ever, been applied to qualitative data collected from the veterinary field. The aim of this study was to explore the use of a combination of corpus linguistic analyses and mathematical methods to investigate a free-text questionnaire dataset collected from 3796 UK veterinarians on evidence-based veterinary medicine, specifically, attitudes towards practice-based research (PBR) and improving the veterinary knowledge base. The corpus methods of key word, concordance and collocate analyses were used to identify patterns of meanings within the free text responses. Key words were determined by comparing the questionnaire data with a wordlist from the British National Corpus (representing general English text) using cross-tabs and log-likelihood comparisons to identify words that occur significantly more frequently in the questionnaire data. Concordance and collocation analyses were used to account for the contextual patterns in which such key words occurred, involving qualitative analysis and Mutual Information Analysis (MI3). Additionally, a mathematical topic modelling approach was used as a comparative analysis; words within the free text responses were grouped into topics based on their weight or importance within each response to find starting points for analysis of textual patterns. Results generated from using both qualitative and quantitative techniques identified that the perceived advantages of taking part in PBR centred on the themes of improving knowledge of both individuals and of the veterinary profession as a whole (illustrated by patterns around the words learning, improving, contributing). Time constraints (lack of time, time issues, time commitments) were the main concern of respondents in relation to taking part in PBR. Opinions of what vets could do to improve the veterinary knowledge base focussed on the collecting and sharing of information (record, report), particularly recording and discussing clinical cases (interesting cases), and undertaking relevant continuing professional development activities. The approach employed here demonstrated how corpus linguistics and mathematical methods can help to both identify and contextualise relevant linguistic patterns in the questionnaire responses. The results of the study inform those seeking to coordinate PBR initiatives about the motivators of veterinarians to participate in such initiatives and what concerns need to be addressed. The approach used in this study demonstrates a novel way of analysing textual data in veterinary research

Hidden secrets of deformation: Impact-induced compaction within a CV chondrite

The CV3 Allende is one of the most extensively studied meteorites in worldwide collections. It is currently classified as S1—essentially unshocked—using the classification scheme of Stöffler et al. (1991), however recent modelling suggests the low porosity observed in Allende indicates the body should have undergone compaction-related deformation. In this study, we detail previously undetected evidence of impact through use of Electron Backscatter Diffraction mapping to identify deformation microstructures in chondrules, AOAs and matrix grains. Our results demonstrate that forsterite-rich chondrules commonly preserve crystal-plastic microstructures (particularly at their margins); that low-angle boundaries in deformed matrix grains of olivine have a preferred orientation; and that disparities in deformation occur between chondrules, surrounding and non-adjacent matrix grains. We find heterogeneous compaction effects present throughout the matrix, consistent with a highly porous initial material. Given the spatial distribution of these crystal-plastic deformation microstructures, we suggest that this is evidence that Allende has undergone impact-induced compaction from an initially heterogeneous and porous parent body. We suggest that current shock classifications (Stöffler et al., 1991) relying upon data from chondrule interiors do not constrain the complete shock history of a sample